Ust-Aldansky Ulus fire, June 2021 Ust-Aldansky Ulus
The fire started on 25 June 2021 in Ust-Aldansky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,004 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 227th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 83 in Russia in 2021, of 581.
- Burnt area
- 23,004ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 25 Jun 2021 – 9 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Jun
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 3,022
- in a single hotspot: 1,200 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 69.0GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 10 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Ust-Aldansky Ulus where it started22,902 ha reached on 25 Jun1.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jun | 30.5 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 26 Jun | 30.9 °C | 27 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Jun | 30.7 °C | 24 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Jun | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jun | 32.8 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Jun | 30.6 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Jul | 32.8 °C | 27 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Jul | 32.2 °C | 28 % | 12 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Jul | 31.0 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Jul | 32.9 °C | 29 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Jul | 28.2 °C | 48 % | 39 km/h | 4.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 6 Jul | 23.9 °C | 51 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 10 |
| 7 Jul | 27.6 °C | 45 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 8 Jul | 28.9 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Jul | 28.4 °C | 44 % | 41 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 10 Jul after | 20.9 °C | 69 % | 31 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 6 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 3,022Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,757 haUst-Aldansky Ulus31 July 2021 · 14 days · 9 km away
- 5,361 haUst-Aldansky Ulus5 August 2021 · 11 days · 11 km away
- 11,882 haUst-Aldansky Ulus23 July 2019 · 11 days · 16 km away
- 6,200 haUst-Aldansky Ulus8 July 2017 · 8 days · 18 km away
- 85,685 haUst-Aldansky Ulus28 July 2021 · 18 days · 28 km away
- 30,815 haUst-Aldansky Ulus14 July 2020 · 41 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ust-Aldansky Ulus fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 June 2021 and 9 July 2021: 15 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 23,004 hectares (230.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ust-Aldansky Ulus (22,902 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Russia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Emergency number: 112
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.